Archie W. League, usually regarded as the first air traffic
controller. The 1929 photo shows him dressed for cold weather at St.
Louis, where the airport operator employed him to prevent collisions
between aircraft. His communication tools were simple: a red flag for
"hold" and a checkered one for "go."

Photo 2, League is shown on duty in his summer office. Note the
rolled-up flags in the wheelbarrow, and the dangling lunch box. His
other equipment included a folding chair, drinking water, and a pad for
taking notes.
League joined the Federal service in 1937. He eventually became FAA's
Air Traffic Service director and retired as an Assistant Administrator
in 1973.

The profession that League pioneered soon gained a measure of
sophistication. In 1930, Cleveland Municipal Airport established a
radio-equipped airport control tower. In the next five years, about
twenty cities followed Cleveland's lead. Controller Bill Darby is shown
with the latest equipment in this 1936 view of Newark tower.

Early
Airway Traffic Control

In December 1935, an airline consortium opened the first Airway Traffic
Control Station for keeping aircraft safely separated as they moved
between airports.

Photo 4 shows
operations at this Newark, N.J., facility during the following year. The
en route controllers kept track of the position of planes moving along
the airways with the help of maps and blackboards. They had no direct
radio link with aircraft. Instead, they used telephones to stay in touch
with airline dispatchers, airway radio operators, and airport traffic
controllers. These individuals fed information to the en route
controllers and also relayed their instructions to pilots.

Photo 5 Earl Ward
organized the Newark facility. Here, he tracks a flight with the aid of
a caliper as R. A. Eccles watches. The pointed markers representing
aircraft were moved across the map as flights progressed. First
developed by controller J. V. Tighe, these markers came to be known as
"shrimp boats."

Ward soon became the
first chief of airway traffic control for the Bureau of Air Commerce,
whose leaders had encouraged the creation of such stations as a response
to a growing danger of midair collisions. In July 1936, the Bureau
fulfilled its promise to assume operation of the Newark facility and two
others that had been established at Chicago and Cleveland. This began
Federal air traffic control, and the three "stations" became the
forerunners of today's Air Route Traffic Control Centers.

The advent of computer technology offered a way to transform the
capabilities of air traffic control. Following the 1961 Project Beacon
report, FAA began planning a system that would use data from both
ground radar and from airborne radar beacons.
In 1967, IBM delivered a prototype computer (above) to the Jacksonville
Air Route Traffic Control Center. The software written for the ensuing
NAS En Route Stage A project contained more instructions than any
previous computer program. The first phase of the NAS En Route Stage A
undertaking provided automatic distribution of flight-plan data through
the Computer Update Equipment (CUE) shown at right.

By February 1973, all
the en route centers in the contiguous United States had this
capability. The second and more complex phase of NAS Stage A involved
radar data processing. This phase provided an aircraft's identity,
altitude, and other data directly to controllers, as shown at left,
through alphanumeric codes on their radar scopes.

Meanwhile, FAA was also developing a system that would give similar support to controllers in airport terminal areas.
The production model of this terminal area equipment, designated ARTS
III, is shown at left. ARTS III was operational at 61 of the Nation's
busiest airports by August 15, 1975. Eleven days later, FAA completed
implementation of the second phase of NAS En Route Stage A at all its
en route centers.

The success of these automation programs placed the U.S. airspace
system on the leading edge of technology. Many upgrades lay ahead as
FAA added safety features and worked to stay abreast of expanding
traffic volume.

Airway Centers in the 1940s

Photos 10 show, racks of paper strips replaced blackboards as
a means of noting flight data in this era; however, the system still
relied on indirect communications and mental calculations. Image 10 shows the Washington center during the following
year. Military personnel helped operate the facility, as the uniforms
indicate. Also typical of the war years was the presence of women,
large numbers of whom served as controllers during the conflict.
The nation's air traffic system coped with a great increase in flights
during the war, and the number of centers jumped from 15 to 27.

(See One Of America’s First Black Air Traffic Controllers
Vernon Hopson)